Alternate Rule: Kinetic Damage Modifiers

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Retry
05/26/16 01:12 AM
68.103.19.152

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Here's a rule I came up with that could make the red-headed stepchildren of mech weapons, Ballistic-based and especially lighter autocannons, a little bit more useful and approach parity with energy and missile weapons
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KINETIC DAMAGE MODIFIER
Autocannons and gauss rifles fire kinetic ammunition which is most effective at close range, but the effects of aerodynamic resistance decreases the effectiveness as the shell travels. To accomodate for this using the advanced rule "Kinetic Damage Modifier", add +2 damage at short range and +1 damage at medium range on a successful hit with an autocannon or gauss rifles. Cluster ammunition such as the Flak ammunition, LB-X Cluster ammo, and the Silver Bullet Gauss Rifle instead add +2 and +1 to short and medium ranges to the cluster hits table instead of increasing the amount of damage per pellet. However, use the standard +2/0/-2 cluster hit modifiers for the Hyper Assault Gauss series.
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The idea is that providing a blanket property to ballistic weapons will increase their usefulness while keeping existing designs legal, compared to other methods like adjusting crits/mass (which would make many designs underweight) or damage (If a AC/2 is buffed to 3 damage for example, why call it an AC/2?).

This could have many affects. The AC/2 would be most affected as it would now deal 4 damage at close range, double that of its base damage. It's still not much, but it's way better than what it used to be. The RAC/2 would now be a serious contender at short range, potentially dealing 24 damage. The AC/5 would also be pretty decently affected, dealing 7 damage at close range. The AC/10 would become a head-chopper at the short range bracket as well, which is nice as the weapon it is frequently compared to, the large laser, cannot. The AC/20 is the only autocannon that does not see some sort of substantial bonus, because of its short range brackets and inherently high default damage.

The bonus damage for the autocannons in particular would increase their utility beyond a simple "flavor" piece and might increase their usage on designs. Although the primary advantages of the AC/2 and AC/5 are their range, dealing extra damage at short and medium ranges would increase their flexibility on mech designs and make them feel less like dead weight.
ghostrider
05/26/16 11:34 AM
66.74.61.223

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Actually, making an ac 3, and phasing out the 2 would be an idea. More damage for the same weight/crits/heat. Might even make is a little more desirable to have then the 2 is.
Though you could make specialized ammunition for it like a hot load for normal guns. The .38 special comes to mind here.

Both could be applied to all cannons, but gauss weapons would not benefit from the hot loads. This could bump up damage or range or even both if done right.

Now when you say close range, is that short range or inside the minimum range?
That works for the first 2 cannons, but the 10 and 20 lack that.
I, personally, think the gauss rifles don't need any extra oomph as they have the advantage of range/heat/damage over all the other weapons.
And to avoid the argument of the 20 doing more, the normal gauss is like 2 1/3 times the range of it, with only 5 less damage.

Something like this was discuss with the rocket assisted round though not across a general weapons type. Just their weapon.
There is potential with this idea.
Retry
05/26/16 09:29 PM
68.103.19.152

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If it receives the short range modifier, it's considered to be "close range". If it's inside the minimum range, it's also considered to be close range.
happyguy49
06/05/16 09:10 AM
98.30.242.159

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This is a decent house rule I think. Autocannons SUCK compared to energy weapons, gauss rifles. Gauss's can explode, but just one ton of exploding AC ammo will completely destroy a mech without CASE, whereas an exploding Gauss will take out the location it is in, but is unlikely to kill a heavy or assault, at least if its arm mounted.

I would combine this rule with an EVEN BETTER rule Open up the damn rules about autocannon ammo! Let every cannon use every type of ammo! (with some restrictions I'll outline.) There is no realistic or worse LOGICAL reason this couldn't be the case. (cause Battletech isn't about realism, but it does need to at least be logically consistent, internally.)

The restrictions I would still impose would be based on real world differences between rifles and shotguns. I mean, you CAN shoot a slug out of a smoothbore shotgun barrel, (in game, an LBX) but it is not as accurate as shooting a slug out of a rifled barrel. So, let LBX shoot any other kind of ammunition besides cluster, with a +1 to hit.

And you CAN fire shot out of a rifled barrel, but you get a weird "ring" pattern instead of a nice tight cluster. So, a regular, light, protomech, ultra, rotary, ect. autocannon should be able to fire LBX ammo, but it takes like a -2 to hit on the cluster hits table for determining how many clusters hit.

How bout that? Turning a Rotary AC/5 into an automatic shotgun sounds sweeeeet.
AmaroqStarwind
04/02/18 03:55 AM
99.203.155.145

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How about construction rules for custom ammo types?
Discord: Amaroq the Kitsune#1092
Telegram: @Lycanphoenix
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